Pedophiles Should Be Protected in Prison

Everybody hates pedophiles. This is true whether you're out in the world or stuck in prison with them. And in prison, pedophiles often rank just above (and sometimes below) germs and fleas. In the general prison population, pedophiles are often the ones most in danger of being raped, stabbed, or otherwise attacked.

Most people don't care, because really? Who is going to defend a pedophile?

Mitchell Harrison, 23, was an inmate in England, charged with raping a 13-year-old girl. He is the second pedophile to be attacked in the prison in one year. Just last year killer Ian Huntley, convicted of the murder of two 10-year-old girls, had his throat slashed.

Let's face it: No one is crying for Harrison with the exception of maybe his mother (and what did she do wrong?).

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There is no sympathy for people who steal the innocence of children and violently attack them, so if they're disemboweled in prison, well, it serves them right. It's true.

On the other hand, justice isn't based on emotion. And it shouldn't be. If it were, every court in the world would just let victims tear the perps to pieces in the street. Maybe we would all like it that way (I know I would), but it's not reasonable nor civilized and, dare I say, it isn't the kind of culture most of us would want to live in. We can tell a lot about a society by the way they treat their criminals.

Let's not house pedophiles at the Ritz, but let's also not assume that they will be safe in the general prison population, especially when history tells us otherwise.

It's a tough pill to swallow -- this idea that our tax dollars would pay any extra to give pedophiles solitary confinement, but maybe one prison or one wing of the prison could house all the pedophiles. There really ought to be some obvious, inexpensive ways to keep prisoners from disemboweling one another.

Nobody wants to be near a pedophile. And no one could blame the prisoners for wanting to not be in the midst of such depravity. There is a code of honor even among criminals and raping little girls falls outside of it.

Still, if someone doesn't get a death sentence, we can't stand idly by, clapping our hands when he is put to death. That isn't how justice works. So, pedophiles should be locked away where they will never see the light of day. No one can harm them, but they can't harm anyone, either.